Photos around Cape Archives

November 13, 2015March 1, 2022

The Night Belongs to Me

I like roaming the streets at night. Maybe part of it is that I don’t like to get up early. Even most of my bicycle riding was done as the sun was going down and later. The streets were quieter. People weren’t in as much of a hurry. It was fun cruising through neighborhoods chatting with people walking their dogs, pushing baby strollers or rolling their garbage cans to the curb.

If you saw a flickering light in a darkened room, you knew the residents were watching TV; if the light was steady, they were on their computer. If their windows were open, you could smell their dinners cooking, and maybe even guess what part of the country or world they were from by those fragrances.

After I dropped off my late-night meeting or sports photos at The Missourian (so I wouldn’t have to get up early in the morning to do it), I’d roam up and down the streets and alleys listening to police calls, talking to the night watchmen or just enjoying a city asleep. The cops all knew my car, so they never stopped me to see if I was up to something.

View from Fort A

The view from what had once been Civil War Fort A at the end of Bellvue is arguably the prettiest view of Cape Girardeau. I wish I had been there 15 minutes earlier so the barge would have shown up better in the reflections of lights on the river. Of course, had I been there 15 minutes earlier, the boat would have been below the bridge, and it wouldn’t have mattered what the light level was. As it turned out, I had to wait about five minutes for it to get where it is here.

KFVS antenna farm

Coming down the hill from Bellvue on North Lorimier from Fort A, my eye was drawn to the KFVS tower and the antenna farm behind it. I drove past, wondering if it was worth a shot. When I saw the crescent moon over the Marquette Hotel. I circled the block and was lucky enough to find a parking spot just about where I needed to shoot. (You can click on the photos to make them larger, by the way.)

A car pulled in across the street just about the time I got out of mine. The driver must have wondered what I was up to, because I could sense he was watching me. Finally, when I opened the door to get back into my van, he got out and walked across the street. I didn’t stick around to see if he went into KFVS or walked down the hill to what used to be the the N’Orleans, the brick building on the left.

The antenna on the right is a twin to the iconic one on the last hill on Highway 61 coming into Cape from Jackson.

November 12, 2015

Asian Aliens Invade

I don’t think the Asian lady beetle invasion is as bad as it was several years ago, but there were plenty of them out and about on Saturday. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Various extension service websites say the insects, which resemble our home-grown lady bugs, were imported as early as 1916 to eat aphids and other soft-bodied insects. It’s only been in the last 30 years that they have established themselves pretty much all over the country.

Wife Lila bought 1,500 native lady bugs to control pests in her raised vegetable gardens. Her brightly colored bugs weren’t nearly so prolific as the foreigners (although you can see them giving it a go to increase their numbers in an R-rated video on Wife Lila’s gardening blog).

They’re looking for somewhere to spend the winter

In their native Japan, the bugs spend the winter en masse in rocky outcrops on the sides of mountains. In the U.S., though, they are attracted to light-colored buildings and human houses, where they enter through cracks, crevices and small openings.

The University of Florida reported that 15-20 thousand of the beetles will invade a single house. A large infestation can be heard moving around inside the walls as they look for a cool place to spend the winter. In Florida, they may not be happy with the warm temperatures inside the walls, so they’ll find an opening that will take them into the air-conditioned interior.

Do they bite or sting?

Most sites say that their only defense is to emit a yellowish, acrid secretion that can stain surfaces. A Kentucky entomologist writes that when there is a large infestation, some of the insects may land on (and, trust me, UNDER) clothing. Lady beetles, being insect-eaters, have chewing mouthparts, and can bite or “pinch.” The bite, he says, feels like a pinprick and is seldom serious.

If they get into your house in large quantities, one way to get rid of them is to chase them down with a vacuum cleaner. It is suggested to create a “trap” inside the cleaner’s hose to “bag” them instead of collecting inside the machine, where their acrid secretion can give your vacuum bad breath for a long time.

November 10, 2015August 31, 2021

Watered-Down Anheuser-Busch

I’m a disgrace to my German heritage. I have to confess I went years not liking the taste of beer. Then, one hot summer, Brother-in-Law John Perry came down to Florida to help us re-roof the house.

Well, to be more accurate, he did most of the work when he wasn’t answering dumb questions from The Boys and me. (Sample: “These nails have the heads on the wrong end.” “Just put them back in your pouch and use them on the other side of the roof.”)

At the end of the day, I took a shine to the Bud Light I was quaffing with John. Nowadays, I usually have a bottle with dinner at least three nights a week.

My friends make fun of me for drinking Bud Light, but I counter by saying, “I’m not really crazy about beer, and Bud Light is the closest thing you can get to Not Beer that still has a little of the taste of beer.

In 1993, the folks at Anheuser-Busch came up with something that might be a little light even for my taste. They switched over one of their lines in Ft. Collins, Colorado, to produce cans of drinking water for folks fighting the Flood of 1993.

Use by 10/15/1993

Wife Lila and Foodie Road Warriorette Jan are always giving me grief about how long I keep food past the theoretical expiration date. I wonder if they’d object if I cracked the can and took a swig of 1993 water? The can’s full and shows no signs of leakage.

Canned water outlasted Dutchtown

Ronald Kucera Jr. of Kucera Demolition reduces a Dutchtown house to landfill material. Eleven of 15 houses eligible for a buyout have been marked for demolition after residents got tired of more and more frequent “100-year” floods.

Not-so-fond memories

Brother Mark and I have some not-so-fond memories of the Flood of 1993, when we were surveying the height of the water inside one of the buildings Dad used for his construction company. We were barely able to get the canoe under the top of the door.

November 7, 2015

Advance Auto Parts Closing

While I was having a problem finding someone around to jump me the other night, I decided to buy a small, cheap battery charger to stick in the what-if box in the back of the car. Turned out it wasn’t the battery, but a bad starter, so the battery and connections were innocent this time and a charger wouldn’t have helped.

Still, I had a few minutes to kill between errands, so I pulled into the Advance Auto Parts store on North Kingshighway to see what they had in stock.

Something looked odd

The shelves looked unusually bare, and there were a couple of notices taped to the door.

For the record, Advance has been my go-to parts store for several years now. The folks who work there have been extraordinarily helpful. They’ve given me some good advice and talked me out of an expensive purchase when a cheaper one would work just as well.

Good troubleshooters

A few years ago, my old van had to be jumped three times in two days, even though I was doing quite a bit of highway driving. The battery was one I had bought in Florida at another chain, and it still had some warranty left. Unfortunately the tester was broken at the Cape store; they could trade out the battery, but I’d still have to pay a substantial amount of difference, and I couldn’t be sure the battery was really the problem.

I drove into Advance, told them my problem and said that if it DID turn out to be a battery problem, then the odds were good that I’d have to buy the replacement from their competitor. After about 15 minutes of troubleshooting, we determined that the battery and alternator were fine, and that it was probably a faulty relay that was draining the charge. I replaced the relay and life was good.

Mother said they were great about replacing wiper blades and bulbs for her.

Sign delivers the bad news

“Store Closing November 7th. We will be closing at 6 p.m. effective immediately. We are sorry for any inconvenience,” the sign read.

“Does that sign mean you are changing your hours and closing at 6 p.m., or does this mean the STORE is closing?” I asked the clerk.

“It’s the store that’s closing tomorrow night. Corporate came in and said we were all laid off and to empty the shelves.”

“Your call is very important to us”

I decided to spend 9 minutes and 57 seconds of my life (most of it on hold listening to a recording telling me how “important” my call was to them) lodging a complaint with Advance’s customer service line.

I told the very nice young lady that I realized that there was nothing either she nor I could do, but I did want someone to know that I was an regular customer because of the great customer service I had gotten from the staff. Over the years, I had been impressed with the low turnover and the way my mother and I had been recognized when we came in. That’s what drew me back to Team #8175

Not that it’ll do any good, but the national customer service line number is 1-877-238-2623. There are at least two levels of menus to work through, and you’ll probably find out your call is “very important to us” before reaching a poor flack-catcher. Be nice to him or her. They aren’t the ones who put some nice folks out on the street.